Nits may be everywhere, but their exact locations throughout the country remain a mystery. File photo. Photo: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_louse#/media/File:Male_human_head_louse.jpg]
Could a real-time register help prevent the spread of headlice in schools and communities across the country?
Cases of the scalp-suckers appear to be rising, with subsidised prescriptions for treatments up 27 percent - but there's no real way to know how many cases there are or where they might be.
Health Researchers say a nit index or tracking tool could show clusters and hotspots helping parents and schools to take preventative action.
ISpyNits founder Kate Ricketts has been working with researchers at Auckland University and told Checkpoint when ISpyNits was developing a head lice product, they noticed there was not much research that showed how many children got nits.
"Wouldn't it make sense to basically create something that was a little bit similar to the Covid heat maps that we were seeing during Covid where people could anonymously just register a case and that data would field and together and sort of a heat map technology?
"Then we would be able to visually see trends and hotspots and see where it was actually the worst."
She said people could report cases of head lice anonymously through an online form.
"They would be submitting a very short anonymous web form with the suburb in it, and that would just feed into a background database that would just basically populate it with the geographic location," she said.
People did not like to talk about nits because of the stigma, she said.
"This is what we're trying to change, because realistically, head lice are as common as the common cold and a lot of people deal with it," she said.
"We think that people will think that you're dirty or clean, but the reality is that everyone gets it, and we need to treat it and we need to talk about it."
Could a real-time register help prevent the spread of headlice?
She said the system would allow schools and community pharmacists to know which areas have more cases, and to encourage people to be more vigilant by checking their children for nits and using treatments.
Schools were keen to get on board, she said, with ISpyNits working alongside them for some time.
"They supply our nit kits out through their Kindos, so they sell it at school. The parents can get the nits notice, click on a button in Kindo, which is their sort of online e-commerce, pick it up with the child after school and then go and treat it," she said.
She said high rates of nits fell on the schools' absentee rates.
"The government requires students to stay home if they have headlice. But schools are not able to treat kids headlice themselves, so it's all about encouraging the parents," she said.
She said the tracking system would work with ISpyNits' existing networks with schools, early childhood centres and community pharmacies first, to let them know that there has been a cluster of nits in a particular area.
Headlice is becoming harder to treat she said, due to becoming immune to some treatments.
"A lot of the existing treatments contain insecticide, and nits are a bit like cockroaches, they're really good at evolution. What's happened is they're evolved to become very resistant to those insecticides," she said.
"I hear so many stories every day of people using flea treatment and fly spray and kerosene. I just thought there has to be a better way, this is just a horrible way for everyone to be managing such a negative experience."